We have a fairly good idea of which words in the language relate to one another. What's uncharted territory is how these words might relate to real languages. Below we'll look at a handful of canon words and how Bethesda may have come up with them.

It goes without saying that much of what follows is speculation. Some origins are more speculative than others. I chose words that are either obvious or interesting. I also focused on languages that Dovahzul was likely inspired by, such as Icelandic, German, and Old English.

Wiktionary is my weapon of choice and I would highly recommend it for etymology on any language.

Words & Possible Origins

Ag "burn" : possibly from Sanskrit agni "fire."

Ahrol "hill" : possibly from Icelandic hóll.

Alok "rise" : English aloft, see also the possible origins of lok.

Aus "suffer" : possibly from the German interjections au, aua, and autsch, which are related to the more familiar English interjections ow and ouch.

Bron "nord" : could be a reverse spelling of "nord," if you also flip the "d" to a "b."

Dez "fate" : possibly a truncated form of the English destiny.

Do "of/about" : from de "of/from" in many languages including Latin, French, Irish, and Portuguese. German equivalent der / des.

Dok "hound" : English dog, Old English docga.

Fel "feral" : English fell, Old English fel "strong, fierce, terrible, cruel."

Fus "force" : English force, Middle English furs.

Gaaf "ghost" : Old English gāst.

Gahrot "steal" : a reference to the character Garrett of the Thief series. See also the origin of tafiir.

Gein "one" : German ein.

Geh "yes" : Old English Ä¡Ä“a "yes, thus, so," origin of German ja and English yeah.

Gram "cloud" : name of the sword in Norse mythology which Sigurd uses to kill the dragon Fafnir.

Hahkun "axe" : possibly from French hache.

Kaaz "cat" : German Katze.

Kiin "born" : English kin and possibly German Kind "child."

Kiir "child" : possibly German Kind and Kinder.

Kopraan "body" : German Körper.

Kras "sick" : German krank.

Krif "fight" : possibly from German Krieg "war."

Laan "want/request" : Icelandic langa "to want/desire," origin of English word long ("to long for").

Lok "sky" : Old Norse lopt, Dutch lucht, English loft.

Mal "little" : possibly English small, or Russian Ð¼Ð°Ð»Ñ‹Ð¹ (mályj) "small, little."

Mindok "know" : possibly from English mind.

Mun "man" : English man.

Rovaan "wander" : English rove.

Saviik "savior" : English save.

Sil "soul" : English soul, German seel.

Strun "storm" : English storm, German Sturm.

Tafiir "thief" : a reference to the invented word taffer featured in the Thief series. See also the origin for gahrot.

Tey "tale" : English tale.

Tiid "time" : Old English tÄ«d, origin of the English word tide.

Ven "wind" : English wind, Swedish vind, Latin ventus.

Viing "wing" : English wing, Swedish/Danish vinge.

Voth "with" : English with.

Wol "oak" : perhaps from English weald, Norwegian voll "forest."

Wundun "travel" : possibly from English wander and German wandern.

paarthurnax

Aus "suffer" : possibly from the German interjections au, aua, and autsch, which are related to the more familiar English interjections ow and ouch.

Possibly a reference towards the suffering cause by the most infamous of the Death Camps, Aus-chwitz.

As for "Mal," the Russian sourcing would seem accurate, but considering the frequency of using that particular word in modern times, I would doubt it. Slicing it from the English word "small" seems much more likely.

Whoa, that's pretty good. I was sort-of-assuming there was a lot of onomatopoeia involved, e.x. wuld, at least the way the Graybears say it, sounds a bit like a sudden gust of wind going through a tree.

How long did it take you to come up with that list?

Thanks! That's probably true. I imagine most of the Shout-related words were created with that in mind, so words like fus, yol, and wuld feel good to shout.

It took a little while to look up the origins of the real-world words, but most of these started with a hunch. I'm pretty familiar with German, so I picked up on quite a few of those. There are probably words inspired by other languages that I've missed.

The first thing that occurred to me for aus and ag was that they were based off gold and silver (aurum and argentum), abbreviated as Au and Ag on the periodic table, giving the message that wealth causes suffering.

I thought of one: viir, "dying," may have been inspired by "virulent."

It is important to remember that the Dovah words have all been conceptualized with Old English & Old Danish poems as a source of inspiration. You'll find that many of the words have a very similar if not exact analogue in those languages. Skygge for example (found in Volskygge) is a Danish word, meaning "Shadow, Ghost". It too can be conceptualized as a possible canon Dovah-word because its source is the same as many of the canon Dovah words.

Sinon, Instead, could derive from the Spanish Si no "if you do not"

Ag "burn" : possibly from Sanskrit agni "fire."

- AGreed ^^

Ahrol "hill" : possibly from Icelandic hóll.

- possibly yet id go further back in time - i doubt Bethesda did it but the Protonorse origin would be holr so even has the r in it

Aus "suffer" : possibly from the German interjections au, aua, and autsch

- Aus is an actual german word with many possible meanings like, out, off, from, of. But yes it could be from Aua or Autsch

Bron "nord"

- i think this could derive from older forms of Bjorn - bear in icelandic. As the norse and the bear do have ties and are human "bears" in terms of size, strength and viciousity in combat (and lazyness elsewhere)

Hahkun

- or german Hacke

Sil "soul" : English soul, German seel.

- just minor thing, Seele

Some words are very obvious like Luft (german air) or Klo (german toilett)

However i want to add that, if you create a conlang you take a sound pattern you like like say all english pronounced letters of the english alphabet added with a few japanese pronounced ones - and make words totally up. 

If done so you will definitely happen to create words that already exist in real languages cause there are only so many sounds a human can produce and each language is limited by that. 

So its only natural that one language contains words that also exist in another totally unrelated language. as example japanese "ia" (ja) actually means no while in german it means yes and both languages are totally unrelated. Thats a simple exaple but it really happens with complex words as well, where totally unrelated languages use the evry same sounds for one word yet mean different things.